The HershTales

Best.....Sunday......Ever.

2008-04-21T07:26:00.000-07:00

OK, so my husband works with this guy from Japan--his name is Koichi and he's just about the nicest person I have met in a long time. He and Adam have struck up quite the adorable friendship and last night Koichi came over and cooked us the most amazing Japanese dinner.

Aside from the edamame, I can say I had never tried any of the 10 or more things he prepared for us and it was all so incredibly delicious! We grazed over the delicious tastes, discussed travel, life in Texas, children, pets, and which language is harder to learn or understand. What a fantastic night in little 'ole Plano! Koichi rocks!

Cute Picture Blog

2008-04-19T12:58:00.001-07:00

Not much to say today, I just wanted to post some cute pics of mine.

Crazy Weather

2008-03-04T05:50:00.000-08:00

OK, so on Sunday night at 10 p.m. I was leaving the airport and it was 72 degrees and seriously warm. On Monday night it was cold and icy and snowy. This is our house and street on Tuesday morning. I'm not as disturbed as this as I am by the fact that there are tornadoes happening in February and March. Does anybody else think this is a little crazy?

Peer Pressure Blog

2008-01-27T19:54:00.000-08:00

OK, you three readers, here goes. I am blogging out of peer pressure, pure and simple. Hallie's out there blogging like crazy and I figured I should do a little something too.

OK, let's see...Oh, I think I made a friend here, which is nice and rare but exciting! My new yoga buddy is very cool and I am excited that I met someone new who isn't all, um, ya know...Texan? Is that horrible to say? Well, I didn't really mean it that way, but I guess I kinda did. It figures that she's from Chicago. Anyway, Adam and I went to her engagement party last night in the big city, and it was good for us to get out of our routine and do something social. It was so much fun! We had a great time and met some really great people, exchanged cell numbers and emails with some of the guests and ended the night with yummy cupcakes and a collective sigh of relief that it wasn't weird and we me some cool peeps.

What else? Oh, here are some pics from our trip to Mexico last month. The first few are from the Hotel California (you know, the one from the song). We made some friends down there too, which was a lot of fun. Enjoy Amigas!! Oh, and one last thing, is it just me, or does this last picture seem to indicate that Fred Armisen is running for President of Los Cabos? I don't know, you decide.

Promised Blog

2007-12-04T08:17:00.000-08:00

OK, this is a short one, but I promised my sister a million years ago that I would put this picture up as a blog. This was really cool--back in July, Jenny called me from California. I was in New Hampshire on the way back to TX and her Dallas to RDU flight was canceled, and she was calling to see if she could crash with us! "Of course!" I said and so was the fun 8 hour visit from Jenny. As I was dropping her off at the airport, I thought we should take a picture and commemorate the nice little unexpected visit. Jenny rocks.

Sufferin' Sniffle Succotash

2007-09-23T11:11:00.000-07:00

When I moved here a year ago, I noticed all sorts of things that I found quite odd about Texans. One of them was how so many people here seemed to suffer from allergies…year round even. I used to tilt my head in wonder and laugh a little (on the inside of course) at all of the people that had these insane allergies. Some of them wouldn’t even leave the building where they worked to avoid massive allergy attacks. They would leave their house via the covered garage and drive to work and park in the covered garage and lave the same way, never going outside all day. I was repeatedly informed and warned, “Just wait. You’ll get ‘em too. You live here long enough…everyone get’s ‘em.” I decided that ‘it’ would not and could not happen to me. For, if “it” did happen to me, then that would mean this quasi East Coast snob would become a Texan? Am I just being kind to myself by saying ‘quasi’?

Cut to one year later. Last week, I am walking out of my ear doctor’s office with 3 prescriptions in hand: Liqui-bid, Clarinex and Nasonex. I have something called Eustachian Tube Dysfunction, which I have actually been dealing with for 2 years now. Only lately, the constant ear popping and pressure has gotten out of hand and quite painful. So, it seems that my newly acquired allergies have worsened my condition, and quite possibly may be my condition. Great, I have been laughing at myself this entire time.

So, not that you ever have, but in case you ever do wonder how Antonio Banderas has become so loaded (OK besides Shrek and his other two hundred films), wonder no more my friend: It is Nasonex. You know, he’s the voice of that little bee on the Nasonex commercials telling us in his cute little accent about seasonal allergies and nasal conjest-yiun. Very cute indeed, but pricey as hell even with good health insurance. Damn you, Antonio the Bee, I am now hooked on the drugs you are pushing. They do work and I am sad to say that those allergy sufferin’ Texans were right.…..sniffle, sniffle.

Freaky Bunny Friday Story

2007-07-08T16:42:00.000-07:00

So, Friday morning I was taking out the trash before work, and I saw these little tennis-ball sized guys barely alive in our pool. They were so small I thought they were frogs! I was an absolute mess trying to get them out and see if they would live. I am not saying I am any kind of super hero, and believe you me, I was less than smooth in my composure, but it felt really good that I happened to see them and have an intervention with fate. I got them inside a towel lined box with a heating pad and they eventually dried off and stopped shaking like crazy. I had to leave them in the box in the bathroom while I went to work, but afterwards we took them to a widlife rescue volunteer's house. One of the rescuers came to the door with a racoon on his shoulders. These guys don't messa round and spend serious amounts of their own money saving injured wildlife. They took our little swimmers and said they would double check that they were OK and release them in a nearby wildlife sanctuary. Those little guys were the cutest little things and I am so glad that they made it!

What's Been Goin' On

2007-05-28T13:52:00.001-07:00

I haven't devoted much time to much more more than work and yoga lately, and I've been reaping the rewards and paying the price (or is it prices in this case?). It's great that I've found a form of exercise that I really like doing, but at 90 minutes a class, it's been eating up my post-work time. As such, my every-now-and then things like blogging have fallen by the wayside. So, for my 3 readers out there, I sincerely apologize. :-)

On the positive side, I did have a fun visit with my sister and seriously adorable niece a few weekends ago, and this past weekend has been pretty much all about fun. We went to 2 Red Sox-Rangers games, and it was great to see the Sox in action and for a fraction of the Boston prices! Our fun neighbors had us over for a birthday pool party on Saturday night, and it was nice to be social and meet new people.

Not much else to report here, just truckin' along down here in Texas. Sometimes I still absolutely cannot believe that we live here!

A few funnies

2007-03-08T18:52:00.000-08:00

Two recent random funnies I have to share:

My friend Allyson was at therapy and after an especially emotional session, she scheduled her next visit, gathered her things, got up, and just before the door closed, she let out a loud fart. How funny is that?

My friend Danielle was emailing with her new Realtor who sent her a link to some properties. She forwarded it to her husband and ended it with “I love you.” Right after she sent it, she realized she hit reply instead and was mortified. She quickly wrote back explaining the obvious mistake. He replied back “I love you too.” At least he has a good sense of humor.

OK, if that wasn't funny enough, you need to watch the Justin Timberlake Soup sketch:

http://www.pistolwimp.com/media/55224/

Soup, dere it is!

My man's Best Man's Wedding

2007-02-28T11:50:00.000-08:00

My hubby and I went to Puerto Rico last month for a wedding. The groom was my man's best man, and my man was his (hope that made sense). Easy, breezy was the extended weekend, and it made me think a lot about a lot of things like:

How lucky I am to have Adam,
How I will always and forever be really nervous around horses,
How everyone's family really does have their own crazy stuff and loony relatives, and
How cellulite in the winter is so much worse than the summer version.

Good times though, good times. One highlight post-reception was the wedding singer passing around the mic, and when she got to me I sang a good verse of "I Will Survive." Ah, that song will always have serious power at weddings. I have to admit that I take secret pleasure in taking less than flattering dance pictures of people I don't know. Is that really wrong?

A Point of Laws

2007-02-05T19:46:00.000-08:00

There are some points of law I gotta make here:

1. Law of Sanity: In-laws are not allowed to stay with you longer than 3 days, 3 nights, period.
2. Law of Respecting Law # 1: Any deviation of said Law #1 is in reckless disregard and gross violation thereof.
3. Law of Eating: Nobody should ever bite their forks, slide the fork out against their teeth, eat with their mouth open, and talk at the same time.
4. Laws of dining out in restaurants: a) You MUST always tip appropriately which means at least 15%, but 20% of they did a good job, period; b) If you refuse to do so because you "hate tipping," you may not go to restaurants; c) You may not order a soda, drink it, and then when offered a refill, ask the server if you may substitute it for a coffee without being charged for it; d) If you have insisted upon paying the bill, You may not take the tab and announce aloud that it is "Inventory Time" and read off everything that is on the tab.
5. Violations of any aforementioned laws will result in continued and increased frustrated blogging.

Eye-yigh-yigh already.

My Cat is the Cutest

2006-12-28T10:02:00.000-08:00

A super short post just to show off my cute little kitty. :-)

Hollah-Days

2006-12-28T09:41:00.000-08:00

We had a great N.C. Christmas visit. My niece continues to astound and entertain with her limitless cuteness. My friend Hal continues to host the highlight-of-the-holiday dinner party (nobody makes better latkes). My family continues to be the only people who can show/remind me of things about myself that I'd like to ignore and forget. I am so grateful for my family for all that they give to and take from me. Tradition is the shizzle, yo.

Texas Toast

2006-12-07T08:56:00.000-08:00

Lately I am wondering how much I like Texas, or how much Texas likes me. I realized that (with the exception of 6 months in gorgeous Colorado and 4 months on an Alp) I have lived in a lot of places, but always on a coast or an island. I like living on a coast or an island, but now I feel like I am coasting on my own island. I think this is just the whole part of living somewhere new, and everyone who has gone through this kind of massive uprooting says, 'give it a year.'

So, instead of being all bummed and snobby about this admittedly overly concrete land o' Lone Star, I gotta get more positive, realize that it will continue to be tough, but it could be a lot tougher. I gotta make a toast to it instead of it making me into toast. I'm going to revisit my 1991 high school quote, because it is just so damn good: "Always look to the positive, and never drop your head, for the water will engulf us if you do not dare to tread."

Here's a toast to proper treading, positivity, and patience.

Change

2006-11-01T19:06:00.000-08:00

Big Change has been on the brain and in our lives like crazy lately.

Too much of it in such short time can overwhelm, excite, ignite, hurt the head.

Change is good, but those growing pains can take a mean bite.

I hope that's all for a little while anyway.

This kind of stuff reminds me of my favorite movie, "Castaway." Hanks' character learned on the island and back home that (when faced with changes/what you cannot control) all he could/can do is to just "keep moving....keep breathing" because that is all that you can do sometimes.

Good stuff, and so true. What a great, great movie.

There is so much to be grateful for, and big changes can make us lose sight of that. At least for a little while anyway.